ICAN: Michelle Gielan: Happiness, Wired for Wonder

Allan Pulga | Oct 17, 2011

‘When we are in a grateful state we get more out of our brain’this is what Michelle Gielan told us at ‘Wired for Wonder’. Michelle is the cofounder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research. Laura Huxley shares her take outs from Michelle’s session.Michelle works with Fortune 500 companies on ways to raise employee engagement and drive success. Clients include Bank of America, American Express, KPMG, and Crain’s Chicago Business.She holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and advice have received attention from Forbes, USA Today, CNN, FOX and NPR.My take out from the inspirational talk Michelle gave was that you can rewire your brain and create new daily practices and habits that will contribute to your overall happiness and success in love, career, money, health and relationships.This is actually something I have been working on recently and I have to say it makes a huge difference to my perspective on life. Being in the arts, I have spent a lot of my time living from fear based beliefs, am I good enough? What if I get it wrong? They are taller than me, smarter than me…. And the list goes on and on.I have found that something as simple as writing out a list of ten things to be grateful for can make a massive impact on your day. Michelle’s research tells us it’s the little words that make the most difference, changing your perspective about something, and the idea of simply making a choice to “look on the bright side” can create a new thought process in your brain. If you commit to doing it on a regular basis!

Michelle believes that when we are positive, EVERYTHING in our lives just works… I loved her story about not going a day without saying thank you and highlighting something great that had been achieved that day, for example, smiling at the person who held the door for you, made your morning coffee, gave you a great idea, compliment, smile.

So I’m a believer, I’ve jumped on the happiness train and I’m staying on it!